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Apr. 29, 1967 - The McCoys' "Beat the Clock", their final Bang era single, Bubbled Under only to crawl up to #92 in a few weeks. The song would be better known through a very comprehensive collection released through Sony Legacy of their Bang! era sides and select album tracks. Their early "Sloopy" days in their final run had a tour with The Rolling Stones in the Late Summer of 1966 and a very cool nugget in "Don't Worry Mother (Your Son's Heart is Pure)" before recording this in March, 1967. A move to Mercury for the Infinite McCoys album after that, Rick Derringer would soon find solo fame in The 70's.



To reward you and your patience for this next installment, here's a three-play from Terry Knight and The Pack's Reflections album, reviewed for the Apr. 29, 1967 BB. Of course, if you know your Detroit Rock History, you know where this was going to go - a split between band and singer, Knights failed solo singles, The Pack's credible journey to continue, then two members meeting up with Knight to ride on the Grand Funk Railroad. Actually, the first two songs in this playlist were also singles!

"Love Love Love Love Love" was a #117 Bubble.

"This Precious Time" was a #18 hit in the D according to WKNR (My choice for Detroit charts) and a national #120. Note of a familiar chord structure that sounds a but like "You Were on My Mind"!

You want more?!!! Well, you got it!



? and the Mysterians' second album Action was also reviewed. Like Knight's second album, this totally missed the BB chart shortly after making their mark a few months back - although I do recollect that both dented the Cashbox Top 100 albums (obviously they had some Detroit stores counting for C-Box!). Despite singles successes, 1967 saw to it that not many of these Garage Greats would see further big hits, and the summer 1967 single from that album "Girl (You Captivate Me)" only stopped at #98 months after the album disappeared from sight. Maybe Cameo Parkway's had some problems with the promotion department by that time (I think an SEC investigation of stock manipulations was going on at that time...got that info from a Bomp article). Sad, but still kind a fitting and at least cool way to end a golden era of Pre-1967 Riot Detroit/Southeastern MI Garage Punk as the hitmakers were fading into the sunset with sounds that were still fighting to get heard only to be eclipsed in the next year by a tougher and louder group of Grande based rockers that were more in connection with what was going on.

Action also contained a song called "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" later covered by The Colourfield and Smashmouth. Don't mind the ill-fitting video using footage from Get Yourself a College Girl, but I still want to introduce you to the original if you have not heard it yet...

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I'm back - although this time is centering around a song and a piece of Exploitation film history that always got me interested in finding EVERYTHING about.

First take a look at this scene of an outside look at the Sunset Strip from Mondo Bizarro - A 1966 flick Co-Directed by Lee Frost, released by Olympic International Pictures. Fans of The Doors and Love should dig this with signs advertising Love at the Whiskey a Go Go and a then-unknown Doors playing at the Galaxy. The London Fog was also nearby, making this a capture when, according to Johnny Legend on the Commentary, all three clubs were all in existence on that street in '66.



Mondo Bizarro is a great flick, and while it was made for the "Adult" audience of that that time (Olympic International's other hits were House on Bare Mountain and the infamous Love Camp 7 among others), it also captured some of what was going on with looks into Vito's studio (with a tasteful topless model) and even an art protest against the Vietnam War on Sunset Blvd. - Olympic's offices were on that same street so you can tell they had a clue as to what was going on. It's a mix of the timely and tasteless, with the Documentary footage at least offering something for those wanting to see every documented footage of that era.

The music was something I was always wanting to know about. I love it, and it was used in many parts of Mondo Bizarro. Recently, I found out that it was Jack Nitzsche's "Surf Finger" was first gained a full on CD release on a collection of the noted producer's work. In the next year, he would work with Neil Young, and you know the rest of the story...

Here's a video featuring this song, which sounds like a more fleshed out and orchestrated version of "The Lonely Surfer". Great style!



I'll pick an album asap, but I wanted to share this with you!

Psy-Fi

^ Glad you mentioned Mondo Bizarro. It's a film I've wanted to see for quite some time but I put it off for other things and had forgotten about it.
Now I'm psyched to get a copy!

Janszoon

Haha, wow, this is a weird coincidence. I was just reading about Mondo Bizarro a couple days ago.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

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There should be copies of the Mondo Bizarro/Mondo Freudo double bill DVD around somewhere, possibly through Amazon or even Something Weird Video itself. It's the best way to go - The two films, plus commentary from Johnny Legend and Eric Caidin who were not involved with the movies but have a ton of seriously interesting stories that fit perfectly anyways, and Mondo Trailers and a gallery of Mondo Movie one sheets used to sell the films in theaters.

The real bits on Mondo Bizarro are as follows - A look into Frederick's of Hollywood that turns into a nice bra show, the Artists Against the Vietnam War happening on Sunset which gets the attention of Pro-War demonstrators, the Sunset Strip footage you saw (Re: the edit in the video - the full chapter has a little extra, if you know what I mean...1966 standards of course, but still cool.), a trip to Vito's studio, and a look into the Sunset Theater where Olympic International had a screen to show it's films in the pre-1968 days and contained a gallery of paintings of women (The "rich owner" I think was Vince Miranda, later famous for his Pussycat Theaters, of which the Sunset turned into a little after the film's release).

Janszoon

I hadn't checked out the videos yet when I made my last post. The song in the second one is great!

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Gavin B.

Great journal topic.

My uncle is a Los Angeles native and was a Sunset Strip street urchin & participant in the Sunset Strip "riots" of 1966. He's given me the grand tour of the Strip along with his own wry observations about what happened in November 1966. I dutifully recorded an interview with him on the topic around five years ago, when he wrote a well received but little read book on the Sunset Strip scene in the Sixties.

He said the use of the word "riot" was a bit of a ridiculous term to describe the events on Sunset Strip in 1966, since most of the activities by protesters were peaceful and orderly.

It all began with the announcement of the closing Pandora's Box a popular hole-in-the-wall live music club at the corner of Sunset & Crescent Heights. Pandora's Box was the club where the Seeds, the most popular youth band of the L.A. youthquake frequently played, along with another popular garage oriented band, the Chocolate Watchband.

The cover charge at Pandora's was cheaper (usually $1) than the other three other Sunset Strip rock clubs, the Whiskey A Go Go, Ciro's and London Fog. Because of their cheap cover charge, Pandora's became the most popular hangout for underage high school kids. Unlike the other three competing clubs, Pandora's didn't have a liquor license and was technically the only club that could admit patrons under the age of 18. The drinking age in California was 21 in 1966 but an 18 year was allowed admission to music clubs that served liquor. It's a bit of an academic question because L.A. police patrolmen earned a nice supplementary income from club owners who paid them to ignore underage drinking violations in the Strip's rock clubs.

The ambiance of Pandora's Box seemed coffee house than a rock music club. The staff of Pandora's were amicable and friendly especially for L.A. rock club employees who had a reputation for acting more like rock stars than the rock stars who played their venues.

On the dark side of things, Pandora's became a prowling grounds for B-list Hollywood actors and entertainment industry executives who were seeking underage high school girls for sexual encounters. Most frequent among those Hollywood customers at Pandora's were Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, a trio of B-movie actors who had developed a large following of youthquake kids with their roles anti-hero types in many of director Roger Corman's teen exploitation films. The trio's club hopping entourage was comprised of an exotic collection of characters from the underground fringe of the B-movie industry and often included actors Bruce Dern, Dean Stockwell, Michael J. Pollard, aspiring & film director Bob Rafelson, and a pair of beautiful aspiring actresses with exquisite Hollywood pedigrees: Susan Stratsberg, daughter of legendary actor Lee Stratsberg who developed the revolutionary practice of method acting and Angelica Houston, daughter of legendary film director John Houston. In 1969 Nicholson, Hopper and Fonda would establish their careers as bankable A-list movie stars by starring in Easy Rider .

The events leading to the Sunset Strip revolved around the mundane issue of police enforcement of local curfew laws. Acting on noise and loitering complaints from merchants and local residents, the LAPD began doing patrols on the Strip to enforce the 10 p.m. curfew for minors under the age of 18 in the summer of 1966. The police spent targeted their enthusiasm for curfew enforcement primarily on Pandora's club goers while ignoring the other rock music clubs.

Down the street, The Whiskey A Go-Go booked the top tier L.A. bands with major label contracts while Pandora's featured less polished indie label garage bands who were regarded as outsiders by many L.A. music industry professionals. The Whiskey's connection with some of the most L.A.'s most powerful entertainment industry executives created an informal police policy in which officers frequently ignored curfew and peace disturbance violations by the Whiskey A Go Go's patrons, while they dutifully targeted Pandora's customers for curfew, loitering and peace disturbance violations.

There were long haired Bohemian types who frequented Pandora's but for the most part, Pandora's customers were kids from affluent families in suburban L.A. counties. By contemporary standards, most of Pandora's clientele dressed like preppies who were a few weeks late on a trip to the barbershop.

There were drug dealers who patronized & sold marijuana at all of the Sunset Strip clubs, including the posh Playboy key club, but Pandora's was frequently portrayed by L.A.'s civic leaders as a den of marijuana dealers who were hellbent on corrupting the innocent children of Los Angeles. Parents of high school kids in all of L.A.'s suburban counties were advised by their civic leaders to keep their children away the vile decadence of the Sunset Strip rock music clubs, especially Pandora's Box.

No one really remembers if Pandora's Box owner announced the closing or if the police closed the club because of the frequent peace disturbance complaints. But young rock fans interpreted efforts to enforce curfew and loitering laws as an infringement on their civil rights.


A snapshot of Sunset Strip demonstration on the parking lot in front of Pandora's Box from November 1966.

On the second week of November, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate against the closing of Pandora's Box. On the day of the demonstration, rock 'n' roll radio stations made an announcement that there would be a rally at Pandora's Box but warned people to assemble peacefully. About 1000 people showed up for the demonstration, including two actors who were most often associated with the scene at Pandora's Box, Peter Fonda & Jack Nicholson. My uncle said "hippie" was the generic term used to describe the Sunset Strip kids back in 1966, but the term "hippie" fell into popular usage to describe the young people during the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967. Sky Saxon the lead singer of the Seeds coined the term "flower power" and described himself as a hippie in early 1966.

The demonstration began peacefully with protesters linking arms, singing and blocking flow of traffic on Sunset Blvd.

The "riot" began when a car full of off-duty Marines got into a fender bender with another automobile. One of the marines got into a brawl with the other driver and the fighting spread. Most of the fighting occurred among a much larger contingent of adult curiosity seekers in various stages of inebriation. When the police showed up and placed a blockade on Sunset Blvd., it made matters worse and small group of about 30 or 40 protesters broke off from the main demonstration and ran amok.

The rogue contingent of protesters rocked a city bus and forced the driver and passengers out and then broke some the windows in the bus and let the air out of the tires. One kid was arrested for arson when he allegedly attempted to drop a lighted match into the gas tank of the bus. That was the extent of the Sunset Strip "riot" except for a few incidents of bottle and rock throwing. Peter Fonda was arrested but was released when he claimed he was filming a documentary of the demonstration.

All and all the Sunset Strip riots were pretty mild, especially since a year earlier in August 1965, Watts riot in Los Angeles resulted in 34 deaths, 3500 arrests and $40 million in property damage.

The confrontations between hippies and the LAPD on the Strip continued off and on for the rest of November until about the Christmas season of 1966. Atco Record's newest superstars Sonny & Cher, who began their career as anti-establishment performers on the Sunset Strip scene, made an appearance at a rally in front of Pandora's Box in December and called for peace between the kids and the cops. Sonny & Cher's peace offering led Los Angeles County Supervisor Ernest Debs to bizarrely label them as "misguided hoodlums." The City of Los Angeles also retaliated by kicking Sonny & Cher off the float they were supposed to ride in the Rose Parade on New Years Day.

Pandora's Box opened for one last farewell night in late December and Buffalo Springfield played at the club. Buffalo Springfield guitarist Stephen Stills did the first public performance his new song about the Sunset Strip riots, For What It's Worth...And everyone knows that For What's It's Worth went on to become an anthem of the turbulent Sixties.

My uncle also said Pandora's Box was used as the location site for the club footage of the Chocolate Watchband's performance, in the 1967 B-movie, Riot on Sunset Strip. The club was already closed, but the film's producer secured a city permit to use Pandora's as a location site to film the club scenes.

The following summer in August 1966, Pandora's Box was razed to realign the streets on Sunset Strip to accommodate the growing flow of tourist traffic. The owner of Pandora's Box received a six figure government check to surrender his ownership rights for the street realignment construction project. My uncle and many other Sunset Strip club regulars came to believe that Pandora's owner had planned to close the club all along from the moment he was offered a big cash settlement to sell out to the planned public works project. Some even believed the owner of Pandora's formed a tacit alliance with city hall to use the harsh curfew enforcement policy to expedite the closure of Pandora's Box, so the owner could sell off the club at the earliest possible date.

I've passed the former site of Pandora's Box a few times during my periodical visits to L.A. but there's nothing that suggest any sort of club or or any sort of building was ever located there. It's basically a traffic island near the corner Sunset Blvd. & Crescent Heights. Below is a snapshot of Pandora's Box in 1966. It was garish pink, purple and red stucco building that Architectural Digest would probably describe as a blighted eyesore on the urban landscape.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt